Tips & Tools To Reduce Computer Eye Strain

In this post, I’ve discussed some tips and tools to reduce computer eye strain that could help you work more efficiently with your PC.

Do your eyes feel tired, burning or itchy after seeing your computer? Or do you have watery/dry eyes while looking at the digital screen? Are you experiencing blurred/double vision, focusing difficulty or increased sensitivity to light when you work with PC? These are the symptoms of dry eyes, and you’re most at risk for computer eye strain that can hurt your productivity. This machine eye fatigue can be medically termed as Computer Vision Syndrome.

Now days, the use of computer, tablets and smartphones is very common at office, schools and home. So, whether you’re an internet marketer, student or a person who spend hours a day in front of the computer screen, I’d suggest you to read this post to end to prevent digital eye strain. Let me start on what causes eyestrain when using a computer!

What Causes Computer Eye Strain?

Digital devices have small prints and pixel images that may need more focus to read and thus cause strain to eyes.

Poor lighting, having an improper workstation and getting exposed to extreme brightness or glare would cause computer eyestrain.

Moreover, if you have uncorrected vision problems, headaches or blurring of vision, you’re more vulnerable to get eye discomfort.

Reduced blinking, bad posture, and extended reading are also the significant reasons for computer eye strain.

How To Relieve Computer Eye Fatigue?

Below are the simple tips to avoid computer eye-strain and lessen the symptoms of CVS.

Image Credit: Freedigitalphotos.net

1. Undergo routine eye exam

Have a regular eye check up and consult with the doctor how often you use the computer both at office and home. Don’t forget to specify the distance between your eyes and computer screen. This measurement would help the doctor to test your eyes at that particular distance.

2. Check light settings

If you have extremely bright light while working with your PC, it will cause computer eyestrain. So,

1. If there is the excess sunlight in your working room, use drapes.

2. Use light bulbs at the side of your computer screen, instead of fixing it in front/behind the monitor.

Also, if you use old monitors with CRT (Cathode Ray Tube), you’ll more likely to have eye discomfort as it causes images to flicker. So, try to advance your computer display with LED screen that do not have any significant impact on your eyes.

4. Reduce Glare

If your computer screen gets more reflections due to outside light, it will produce glare that would make your eyes get strain. In that case, you may cover the windows/doors or change the paint of your light color wall with the dark color. However, the best solution to minimize glare is that to install an anti-glare filter on your computer monitor. If you wear spectacle, consider buying the lenses with anti-reflective coating as it would reduce the amount of light reflection.

5. Practice to blink often

Computer eye strain is mainly caused due to dryness and irritation. If you blink less frequently, coating of tears may get fade away and thus cause eye strain. People who work at the computer rarely blink their eyes that would result in the loss of eye moisture. So, when you work with your PC, it is more important to blink regularly to keep your eyes well lubricated and nourished.

6. Get eyewear for computer

One of the best ways to avoid computer eye-strain is to get computer reading glasses for your eyes. PC glasses are proved to be the greatest comfort provider at your computer than contact lenses (Contact lenses would get dry during continuous computer work)

7. Maintain good posture

Poor posture during computer work would contribute digital eye problems. Get a good computer chair that can be easily adjusted to a suitable height of your computer screen. Sitting about 24 inches away from the monitor would be good, and the optimum position of the screen should be 15 to 50 degrees below eye level to avoid eye fatigue.

10 Efficient Tools To Reduce Computer Eye Strain

Technology has been emerging a lot and thus some valuable tech tools are available to prevent computer eye strain. Below are the apps that would help you to reduce the brightness of the screen, manage the monitor glare or remind you to give the rest to your eyes.

Protectyourvision is a free application that has been specially designed to protect your eyes from computer eye strain. It has three different modes with sound alarm and desktop notification. You can select the suitable mode, and you avert your eyes from the computer screen.

It’s a funny software that fades your desktop into a bluish color. It has been created mainly to develop the habit of taking breaks to relax your eyes for every 15 minutes and to release tension around neck parts. This visual break reminder is for Windows and displays the current time.

If you sit in front of the computer for endless hours, Timeout reminds you to take a break on the regular basis. It has two kinds of breaks named “Normal” break and “Micro” break and thus you may enable your preferred pause, based on the amount of time you spend with the computer. Having excellent customization features is a notable stuff of Timeout. This computer eye strain app is also available for Mac users.

Do you work with the computer at night? Then F.lux is one of the perfect solutions to reduce computer eye strain. Yes, it makes your PC warm at night and like sunlight during the day. It would also help you to sleep better. Windows, Mac, Linux and IOS users can download this computer eye strain software for free.

It is also an ideal app for the late night computer workers who wish to control multiple monitors. It is simple to use which allows managing the brightness of several PC screens. This screen dimmer is free to use and works on Windows 7, XP and Vista.

EyeDefender is a specially designed freeware to prevent Computer Vision Syndrome, which lets you schedule the break to be taken while working on the computer for hours. It runs a default screen saver and visual training to calm down the eyes. Setting up the time to take the rest, displaying the popup timed reminder, and some automatic features are the noteworthy features of Eyedefender.

If you’re using your computer in the dark, this helpful chrome extension tints the websites with white backgrounds to prevent your eyes from hurting. You may set the brightness level of your monitor with this chrome add-on.

Are you Android user who work with Smartphone or Tablet in the late evening? If so, download Twlight from Google Play Store to get pleasant experience for your eyes during night. It filters the flux of blue light emitted from the gadget screens and protect your eyes with a soft red filter. This dynamic eye strain app will also help to get rid of sleeping problems.

Workrave is an efficient program that alerts you to take micro-pauses, breaks to take the rest and restricts your computer usage limit. It helps you to recover and prevent the Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI), and it runs on Windows & GNU/Linux.

EyeLeo is also a handy application to remind you to take short eye breaks. If you spend more time on your computer, you’ll get practiced to take care of your eyes with its features like screen blocking, strict mode, eye exercise, and customizable parameters.

Conclusion:

Most of the people spend several hours daily in front of the computer screen as a part of their jobs and after reaching home, they continue to watch TV, play games on tablets and use smartphone to chat with friends. So they often feel tired in their eyes and get headache.

A recent study states that about 70% of the people from developed countries are getting affected by Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) as they are viewing digital screen for more than 2 hours every day. So, it would be good to blink often your eyes and perform eye gymnastics.

I would recommend you to follow the above-discussed tips and use any of the tools to put off computer eye strain. Do you spend many hours in front of the digital screen? Are you following any innovative methods to reduce computer eye strain? Share your experiences with me.

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About The Author

Nirmala is a devoted blogger who likes to write about technology, social media and blogging. She leads a simple life and would like to help people through her writing skills. You may connect with her on Google Plus

Your interest in reading my post is truly appreciated. Thanks for being opening commenter for this post, glad you liked it. Even I’ve started to implement the 20-20 rule after writing this post and I feel some favorable conditions for my eyes. Keep coming to share your thoughts 🙂

Eye is the most beautiful part of our body and it should be healthy because without it there is no light in our life. There should be timely break taken as you mentioned and also, you have listed few tools that reminds to take break while working.

I am using specs to minimize the effect on my eyes. Very neat and clean post with care to your reader. Awesome.

You made my day with your uplifting comment. I’d always like to present neat and helpful post for my beloved readers 🙂

Yes, taking of our eyes is more essential and it would be good to give often break in viewing computer screen. Cheers that my listed tool nudged your eyes to take break, your valuable views are most welcome 🙂

I just landed here from Facebook. A very useful article for every body that uses computer and specially for the people who works more than 8 or 12 hours on the computer. Work is important, but more important thing is having an health eye sight . I will surely follow your tips 🙂

A warm welcome to my blog, I’m doing good, hope the same for you too. Most of the people work with computer for more than 10 hours and they unaware of its impact. So, to keep their eye open, I’ve crafted this post for them.

An awesome article Nirmala with some really good practical applications. We bloggers spend too much time in front of our computer screens, we really need to make sure that our eyes are taken care of, thanks for the information. I will install 1-2 apps to see if there’s any difference in that feeling of fatigue I start getting daily!

Yes Aditya, taking care of our eyes is more important as we’re spending too much hours in front of digital screen. Sure, if you feel any difficulty, try to make use of any of the these apps which I’ve listed above. I’d say “Prevention is better than cure” and thus, practice to blink more often and give regular break to your eyes by looking at somewhere other than computer screen. Good to get your comment after long, keep coming here to share your valuable views 🙂

Nirmala many writers, logo designers and bloggers spend lot of time in front of computer and many times face the problem of Eye Strain. In this post you have compiled some of the best tips to reduce eye strain. The best thing I liked about this blog post is inclusion of the tools which can help in reducing the problem of Eye Strain.

Nirmala you yourself too try to follow these tips as you too are spending good number of hours online daily. A small suggestion from me – Next post can be about tips which can help in getting rid of joint and back pain that can happen sitting in front of computer for many hours without any break.

Haha Mohit, to be very frank, I’ve started to follow some of the above mentioned tips after writing this blog post. I’ve installed two apps on my PC to remind me to take regular eye breaks and do eye exercises.

Yes, these useful tips would help the gadget users and thanks for your post suggestion. I’ll try to search some useful apps to get rid of joint and back pain for computer users.

Many thanks for leaving your comment and your care is much appreciated 🙂

Well. You have come up with an awesome post regarding health. As a human, we are having two most important organs to communicate with others, one is Ear and other one is Eye. Among this eye and ear, eye is must for everyone, even we can live without ears, but surely not without eyes, it’s very tough.

Almost you have discussed all the necessary things to safeguard our eyes. It’s very cool, interesting and easy to follow. According to me, taking regular interval is the best method to avoid eye dryness.

Thanks for your non-stop support through comment, it is just awesome 🙂

Yeah, Eyes are the most important part of our body and it is really difficult to survive without that. So, much care should be given to protect from unnecessary strains and dryness. Taking frequent breaks and blinking more often would help a lot in this matter.

Fab post! Those frequent breaks are huge for me Nirmala. I work for an hour straight tops then get up and walk around or jump around for like 5 tor 10 minutes. I stretch,I relax and more than anything I give my eyes and typing fingers a rest from the work i’ve put them through in the prior error. If you’re willing to blink regularly and take the time to step away from the computer you can give your eyes and entire body a much needed break.

The cool thing is that when you are working from a fresh and rested place the quality of your work improves. That’s the great secret; being relaxed, and quite chill, makes one so much more effective and successful in all that they do because they’ve learned how to manage their energy. This is one of my secret’s of blogging from paradise, and it’s a success secret for any blogger who’s achieved a darn neat thing.

Whether I’m blogging from Bali, or writing in Fiji, I take my hourly breaks to keep my eyes nice and rested, so I can churn out those champion comments from the tropics 😉 Nirmala, I totally dug each tip and appreciate the list you put together for us. This is a big time issue many bloggers need to address, to get their body aligned, and to boost their creativity.

Good to know your writing experiences(Secret of writing), it is just awesome. Taking regular breaks would improve our productivity, creativity and yes, overall eye health. It is more vital to avoid eye dryness to prevent digital eye fatigue.

I always do care for my beloved readers a lot and thus presented this post for them. Thanks for being one among my visitor and good to hear that you’ve used ProtectYourVision to give break for your eyes frequently 🙂

This article is really useful and urgent to spread out. I have to work with computer for more than 8 hours, so I pay much attention to eye care. I installed F.lux already. It’s nice. But it’s not enough for me. I also purchased T’aime blue light blocking glasses. They are awesome. My eyes now are comfortable. Still, I will test this glasses afterwards.

Hello Summer, Thanks for sharing your experiences here and good to know that you’ve installed F.lux on your PC. It is really nice that you’ve purchased computer glasses to work with PC, how much does it costs? Cheers you feel comfortable with the blue light blogcking glasses, have a great week 🙂

Awesome post. Everyone should go through this post and take care of their eyes. I have seen so many people stairing at monitor without blinking eyes. This can harm eyes. So, keep blinking your eyes in every 20-30 sec…

You have written a great article. It will help to reduce computer eye strain.This is Mind Blowing tips and tools .I like your all point and like most 3. fine tune and advance PC display.I will share this post with my followers at Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

Good to see you on my blog Arif 🙂 Thanks for reading my post and cheers you’ve liked these tips and tools to avoid computer eye strain. Appropiriate PC settings is more important to make our eyes comfortable while working.

Hi Mam, Useful tips and must needed in this digital era. The main problem arises is the dry eye condition when we use to work for a long time in PC, Laptop, even mobiles.

As suggested by you, taking a break and remembering to blink is mostly helpful one and they are often advised by the opthalmologist.

Also we can practise like, after prolonged exposure to digital screens, we have to gently wash our eyes with cool water and then gently keep our palm over the eyes for say 20 secs. Then have a little walk around the house which gives oxygen to our eyes, that really works and approved by experts.

Since em a blogger since 6 months and more.. while at the beginning of blogging , i was not much familiar with the exact idea of blogging about proper SEO works and all,so, i was not much frustrated about this computer eye strain problems. now it changed..Heavy online work load is sucking my eyes.. I consulted with my doctor.. em getting relaxed.. but the work continues and pain comes back.As suggested by you, taking a break and remembering to blink is mostly helpful one and they are often advised by the opthalmologist.I like your all point and like most 3. fine tune and advance PC display.I will share this post with my followers at Facebook, Google+ and Twitter… Thanks for a great article.. 🙂

Hello Nirmala, Thank you for this great article regarding eye strain. As a full-time blogger I always stay online in front of my PC. It causes a lot of eye strain. But after reading this article I know how to take care of my eyes.

Undergoing for routine eye checkup is avoided by most of the people due to time constraint. But one should take time to for checkup. Afterall health is wealth! Drinking water regularly and dipping eyes in normal water every morning while taking bath also helps a lot.